by Dave Barry
And Elaine is thinking: Maybe I’m just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I’m sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my self-centered, schoolgirl romantic fantasy.
And Roger is thinking: Warranty? They want a warranty? I’ll give them a goddamn warranty. I’ll take their warranty and stick it right up their …
“Roger,” Elaine says aloud.
“What?” says Roger, startled.
“Please don’t torture yourself like this,” she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. “Maybe I should never have … Oh God, I feel so …” (She breaks down, sobbing.)
“What?” says Roger.
“I’m such a fool,” Elaine sobs. “I mean, I know there’s no knight. I really know that. It’s silly. There’s no knight, and there’s no horse.”
“There’s no horse?” says Roger.
“You think I’m a fool, don’t you,” Elaine says.
“No!” says Roger, glad to finally know the correct answer.
“It’s just that … It’s that I … I need some time,” Elaine says.
(There is a fifteen-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one that he thinks might work.)
“Yes,” he says.
(Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand.)
“Oh, Roger, do you really feel that way?” she says.
“What way?” says Roger.
“That way about time,” says Elaine.
“Oh,” says Roger. “Yes.”
(Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse. At last she speaks.)
“Thank you, Roger,” she says.
“Thank you,” says Roger.
Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when Roger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechoslovakians he has never heard of. A tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it’s better if he doesn’t think about it. (This is also Roger’s policy regarding world hunger.)
The next day Elaine will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification. They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it, either.
Meanwhile, Roger, while playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Elaine’s, will pause just before serving, frown, and say: “Norm, did Elaine ever own a horse?”
We’re not talking about different wavelengths here. We’re talking about different planets, in completely different solar systems. Elaine cannot communicate meaningfully with Roger about their relationship any more than she can meaningfully play chess with a duck. Because the sum total of Roger’s thinking on this particular topic is as follows:
Huh?
Women have a lot of trouble accepting this. Despite millions of years of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, women are convinced that guys must spend a certain amount of time thinking about the relationship. How could they not? How could a guy see another human being day after day, night after night, sharing countless hours with this person, becoming physically intimate—how can a guy be doing these things and not be thinking about their relationship? This is what women figure.
They are wrong. A guy in a relationship is like an ant standing on top of a truck tire. The ant is aware, on a very basic level, that something large is there, but he cannot even dimly comprehend what this thing is, or the nature of his involvement with it. And if the truck starts moving, and the tire starts to roll, the ant will sense that something important is happening, but right up until he rolls around to the bottom and is squashed into a small black blot, the only distinct thought that will form in his tiny brain will be, and I quote,
Huh?
Which is exactly what Roger will think when Elaine explodes with fury at him when he commits one of the endless series of petty offenses, such as asking her sister out, that guys are always committing in relationships because they have virtually no clue that they are in one.
“How could he?” Elaine will ask her best friends. “What was he thinking?”
The answer is, He wasn’t thinking, in the sense that women mean the word. He can’t: He doesn’t have the appropriate type of brain. He has a guy brain, which is basically an analytical, problem-solving type of organ. It likes things to be definite and measurable and specific. It’s not comfortable with nebulous and imprecise relationship-type concepts such as love and need and trust. If the guy brain has to form an opinion about another person, it prefers to form that opinion based on something concrete about the person, such as his or her earned-run average.
So the guy brain is not well-suited to grasping relationships. But it’s good at analyzing and solving mechanical problems. For example, if a couple owns a house, and they want to repaint it so they can sell it, it will probably be the guy who will take charge of this project. He will methodically take the necessary measurements, calculate the total surface area, and determine the per-gallon coverage capacity of the paint; then, using his natural analytical and mathematical skills, he will apply himself to the problem of figuring out a good excuse not to paint the house.
“It’s too humid,” he’ll say. Or: “I’ve read that prospective buyers are actually attracted more to a house with a lot of exterior dirt.” Guys simply have a natural flair for this kind of problem-solving. That’s why we always have guys in charge of handling the federal budget deficit.
But the point I’m trying to make is that, if you’re a woman, and you want to have a successful relationship with a guy, the Number One Tip to remember is:
Never assume that the guy understands that you and he have a relationship.
The guy will not realize this on his own. You have to plant the idea in his brain by constantly making subtle references to it in your everyday conversation, such as:
“Roger, would you mind passing me a Sweet ‘n’ Low, inasmuch as we have a relationship?”
“Wake up, Roger! There’s a prowler in the den and we have a relationship! You and I do, I mean.”
“Good news, Roger! The gynecologist says we’re going to have our fourth child, which will serve as yet another indication that we have a relationship!”
“Roger, inasmuch as this plane is crashing and we probably have only about a minute to live, I want you to know that we’ve had a wonderful fifty-three years of marriage together, which clearly constitutes a relationship.”
Never let up, women. Pound away relentlessly at this concept, and eventually it will start to penetrate the guy’s brain. Some day he might even start thinking about it on his own. He’ll be talking with some other guys about women, and, out of the blue, he’ll say, “Elaine and I, we have, ummm … We have, ahhh … We … We have this thing.”
And he will sincerely mean it.
The next relationship-enhancement tip is:
2. Do not expect the guy to make a hasty commitment.
By “hasty,” I mean, “within your lifetime.” Guys are extremely reluctant to make commitments. This is because they never feel ready.
“I’m sorry,” guys are always telling women, “but I’m just not ready to make a commitment.” Guys are in a permanent state of nonreadiness. If guys
were turkey breasts, you could put them in a 350-degree oven on July Fourth, and they still wouldn’t be done in time for Thanksgiving.
Women have a lot of trouble understanding this. Women ask themselves: How can a guy say he’s “not ready” to make a permanent commitment to a woman with whom he is obviously compatible; a woman whom he has been seeing for years; a woman who once drove his dog to the veterinarian in her new car when it (the dog) started making unusual stomach noises and then barfing prolifically after eating an entire birthday cake, including candles, that she made from scratch for him (the guy), the result being that her car will smell like a stadium rest room for the next five years, at the end of which this guy will probably still say he’s “not ready”? And how come this same guy was somehow capable, at age seven, of committing himself to a lifelong, passionate, win-or-lose relationship with the Kansas City Royals, who have never so much as sent him a card?
A lot of women have concluded that the problem is that guys, as a group, have the emotional maturity of hamsters. No, this is not the case. A hamster is much more capable of making a lasting commitment to a woman, especially if she gives it those little food pellets. Whereas a guy, in a relationship, will consume the pellets of companionship, and he will run on the exercise wheel of lust; but as soon as he senses that the door of commitment is about to close and trap him in the wire cage of true intimacy, he’ll squirm out, scamper across the kitchen floor of uncertainty and hide under the refrigerator of nonreadiness.1
This is natural behavior. Guys are born with a fundamental, genetically transmitted mental condition known to psychologists as: The Fear That If You Get Attached to a Woman, Some Unattached Guy, Somewhere, Will Be Having More Fun Than You. This is why all married guys assume that all unmarried guys lead lives of constant excitement involving hot tubs full of naked international fashion models; whereas in fact for most unmarried guys, the climax of the typical evening is watching an infomercial for Hair-in-a-Spray-Can while eating onion dip straight from the container. (This is also true of married guys, although statistically they are far more likely to be using a spoon.)
So guys are extremely reluctant to make commitments, or even to take any steps that might lead to commitments. This is why, when a guy goes out on a date with a woman and finds himself really liking her, he often will demonstrate his affection by avoiding her for the rest of his life.
Women are puzzled by this. “I don’t understand,” they say. “We had such a great time! Why doesn’t he call?”
The reason is that the guy, using the linear guy thought process, has realized that if he takes her out again, he’ll probably like her even more, so he’ll take her out again, and eventually they’ll fall in love with each other, and they’ll get married, and they’ll have children, and then they’ll have grandchildren, and eventually they’ll retire and take a trip around the world, and they’ll be walking hand-in-hand on some spectacular beach in the South Pacific, reminiscing about the lifetime of experiences they’ve shared together, and then several naked international fashion models will walk up and invite him to join them in a hot tub, and he won’t be able to do it.
This is Basic Guy Logic. And it leads us to our final and most important tip for women who wish to have a successful relationship with a guy:
3. Don’t make the guy feel threatened.
Guys are easily threatened by the tiniest hint that they have become somehow obligated, so you need to learn to give soothing, nonthreatening responses, especially in certain dangerous situations, as shown in the following table.
Situation Threatening Response Nonthreatening Response
You meet a guy for the first time. “Hello.” “I am a nun.”
You’re on your first date. The guy asks you what your hopes for the future are. “We’ll, I’d like to pursue my career for a while, and then get married and maybe have children.” “A vodka Collins.”
You have a great time on the date and the guy asks you if you’d like to go out again. “Yes.” “Okay but bear in mind that I have only three months to live.”
The clergy-person asks you if you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband, for richer and poorer, in sickness and in health, etc., ‘til death do you part. “I do.” “Well, sure but not literally.”
1 I am a professional writer. Do not try these metaphors at home.
5
Guy Problems
The Pain. The Anguish.
The Men’s Room.
ONE OF THE biggest problems that guys have is that a lot of people—and here I am referring to women—think that guys don’t have any problems.
“What problems can guys have?” women are always saying, just out of earshot. “Guys don’t worry about relationships. They don’t care whether the windows have any kind of window treatments. They can’t see dirt or get pregnant. They’re supposed to have facial hair. They can wear basically the same outfit for their entire lives—to work, dinner, church, the theater, parties, weddings, bar mitzvahs—and then they can be buried in it. All their socks are the same color. They can pee standing up.”
Yes, to members of certain other genders the life of the guy looks pretty ideal. But beneath the placid surface of the average guy, there is raging inner turmoil and pain. The outside observer is not aware of this. Even the guy is usually not aware of this, especially if his mind is occupied with a pennant race.
But the turmoil, pain, etc., are there nonetheless. Because a guy must constantly deal with certain kinds of problems that only guys face, and that never get talked about on Oprah Winfrey1 or Sally Jessy Raphael.2 I’m talking about very serious problems, here; agonizing problems; extremely complex problems; terrible problems; problems so gut-wrenchingly problematical that it is difficult even for a trained professional writer such as myself to put them into words, because quite frankly I haven’t figured out what they are yet. I’m just stalling for time here while I think them up.
Okay, I have one. A serious problem that guys face is:
The Hardware-Store Problem
Picture yourself in this situation: You’re a guy, and you’ve just walked into a hardware store, and you’re holding some kind of broken thing. This thing might be a “bearing.” You’re not sure, though; it could also be a “sprocket,” a “gasket,” or even a “volt.” You just don’t know. You’ve never really known what any of these things are, except that they are found inside the various mechanical objects that guys are supposed to understand, automatically, as though mechanical aptitude were a growth stage in male puberty. One day you wake up and discover that your armpits are sprouting little hairs; the next day you wake with the ability to repair a transmission.
But this never happened to you. This is your dirty little guy secret: You have no clue as to how mechanical things work. The last mechanical thing you ever did was in Wood Shop, when during a four-month attempt to make a bookshelf, you successfully nailed your shirt to a board. When you look at something mechanical, such as the internal workings of an automobile, or an appliance, or an airplane, or a toilet, all you see is a mass of random, dirty items, which you can identify only as “parts.” And they all look like the same part. As far as you can tell, all mechanical devices are basically the same inside; you secretly believe that with only minor modifications, a Toyota could produce ice cubes, and a commode could play compact discs, and an Amana freezer could cruise at an altitude of thirty-seven thousand feet.
But of course you’d never tell anybody that you feel this way, because you, like most guys, believe that all the other guys really understand how mechanical things work. And the hell of it is, some of them actually do. These are the guys—usually named “Steve”—whom you are forced to summon to your house when you suspect that you might have a serious mechanical problem.
Usually you try to ignore mechanical problems. Usually, in fact, you deny that they even exist, because you don’t want to confront the fact that you are incapable of fixing anything. Over the years, especially since you got married, you
’ve become highly skilled at pretending that things are not broken when they clearly are. Let’s say your wife points out that the front door will not open, and her tone of voice clearly indicates that she thinks it should.
“Honey,” you say, in the exasperated, slightly condescending voice that guys use when discussing mechanical things with their wives so as to disguise the fact that they are full of shit, “It’s not supposed to open. This particular door is a type of security door that is supposed to, after you have had it for a certain number of years, just stay closed all the time.”
Or say the kids tell you that the toaster bursts into flame when they push down the lever.
“Kids!” you say. “How many times do I have to tell you? That toaster is for outdoor use only.”
But some household mechanical problems simply cannot be ignored. Let’s say one morning, while watching the kids extinguish their toast, you happen to glance into the living room, and you notice that it has fallen into your basement. Even you can’t deny that this is a problem. To maintain your masculine dignity, you pretend that you’re actually capable of dealing with this situation.
“Okay,” you say to your wife, as you look down into the vast, gaping, rubble-strewn pit where your living room used to be. “I’ll need some duct tape.”
But you’re not fooling anybody. Eventually you have to break down and call Steve.
Steve arrives in a truck. It’s a big truck. Steve is a big guy. His forearms are bigger than your Barca-Lounger. He strides into your house (casually, on his way in, fixing the door that won’t open) and spends a few minutes squinting at the problem in a knowledgeable manner. Then he calls you over.
“Mr. Barry,” he says, “I want to show you something.”
